ASCGA members Dana Fry and Jason Straka of Fry/Straka Global Golf Course Design, will create Batu Bay Golf Club in Inner Mongolia, China.
Fry will oversee the project from start to finish. The resort golf course, perched on a bluff overlooking the Batu Bay reservoir, will be an 18-hole layout built on sand dunes, with a Banyan Tree Hotel located on site; the course will be open to guests staying at the hotel. The owner is Oriental Holding Group based in Ordos, Inner Mongolia.
“Batu Bay has the chance to become one of the world’s great courses due to the excellent soil conditions, natural sand scrub vegetation and awesome views of the reservoir,” Fry said. “It has a Sand Hills (Nebraska) or Bandon Dunes (Oregon) feel to it.”
The layout is on an isolated site, a three-hour drive from Ordos, with hundreds of acres of sand dunes on a hill above the large reservoir. Native scrub vegetation covers the entire site now; there are virtually no trees anywhere on the property. The project is in the planning stage at this time, with construction scheduled to begin in May 2013 and the course slated to open in late summer 2014. The closest airport is Yulin Airport in Yulin City, Shanxi Province, about a one-hour drive away.
For more information on Fry/Straka Golf Course Design, click here.